She stood there, as if

She stood there, as if frozen in thought, hands delicately trembling at her sides.

The mirror before her was broken in places, shards scattered on the floor,

some had been destroyed on purpose,

others were inevitably doomed to fall.

And the longer she looked,

the more she wanted for it to break

. A distorted image of her own creation,

all the things wrong

all the things flawed,

brought out from the locked cage she had so desperately wanted to keep it in.

So like a lifeless doll,

bones like knives

so pale,

so fatally fragile would have brought anyone to ask her why.

Why the measuring of her wrists,

why the endless days of insatiable hunger she deprived herself of.

Why?

She could never explain the desperation,

the impulses,

the fear.

But it wasn’t just the fear of not being beautiful.

If anything,

that was hardly the problem.

It was the not being  good enough that led to the desperation.

The rules.

So she followed them,

as hard she could.

She tried.

She really did.

But the more she did it,

the more she tried to be what everyone wanted,

what everyone thought was perfect,

the more she failed.

One extreme...to the other.

People shying away from her for being too much,

and then for being too little.

Eat less, the people had said.

Eat more, they said now.

So why?

Why did she still do this,

why did she still give her whole soul, pour out the bits that used to overflow,

but she poured too much out and was barely left with anything at all.

That’s why.

It was all she had left, it was all she could do,

it was all she knew.